REQUEST FOR INFORMATION REGARDING ADAPT LEARNING TOOL FOR ESDC

December 5, 2022. Amendment #1

This Amendment #1 is to extend the solicitation end date from December 5, 2022 to January 4, 2023 at 14h00 Eastern Standard Time (EST)

All other terms and conditions remain the same.

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Background and Purpose of this Request for Information (RFI)

The Adapt authoring tool is a free and easy to use e-learning authoring tool that creates fully responsive, multi-device, HTML5 e-learning content using the Adapt developer framework. This Cloud-based software allows you to quickly build content using the Adapt Framework: you can create an account, log in, create courses, add interactive elements, preview and publish your content. The Adapt Framework creates HTML5 e-learning courses that can be delivered with a web server or a SCORM compliant learning management system. It powers the Adapt authoring tool, an easy to use design tool for creating Adapt courses. 

The College@ESDC ("The College") provides departmental learning services to support departmental programs such as Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Plan, Grants and Contributions delivery and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, etc. to ensure that employees (avg. 40,000 employees) gain the knowledge and skills required to serve Canadians and internal clients. The College works in partnership with all departmental branches and regions to plan, design, deliver and coordinate innovative formal and informal learning solutions that enable employees to respond to the Department’s core business needs and shifting corporate priorities. ESDC employees can register for, complete and report on learning that is internal to our Department using the Cloud-based Integrated Learning Management System. COVID-19 forced an accelerated roll-out to implement a more nimble delivery model for ESDC’s eLearning services to support employees in delivering programs and services to Canadians.

Since 2020, the Learning Infrastructure Team (LIT) at College@ESDC has been leading a pilot project to test the use of the Adapt authoring tool with ESDC College’s design teams in order to streamline the design, development and maintenance of ESDC e-learning courses. As a result, over 190 courses were developed with 178 registered users, supporting essential and job-specific training to more than 40,000 employees. 

Findings from our pilot project have shown that the Adapt authoring tool meets ESDC’s requirements in terms of ease of use, cost-effectiveness and capacity to comply with EU EN 301 549 V3.2.1/ WCAG 2.1 AA requirements. With the pilot project coming to an end in March 2023, we are working to obtain departmental IT approval to have the Adapt authoring tool recognized as an ESDC Department-approved software available for leveraging by the entire Department, while working internally on securing its hosting environment on an ESDC production server (the tool is currently hosted on an ESDC Cloud sandbox). However, significant work remains to render our tool accessible and bilingual in keeping with our departmental standards.

The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to assist the Employment and Social Development (ESDC) College@ESDC in assessing the market in order to identify industry leaders with Adapt authoring tool expertise and the interest, capacity and ability to supply and attain the relevant identified objectives. Specifically, the Department seeks a contractor to enhance our Adapt instance. The two main objectives are:

• Having an accessible Adapt tool compliant with the Accessible Canada Act (Bill C-81) and industry standards EU EN 301 549 V3.2.1/ WCAG 2.1 AA. Employment and Social Development Canada will need to modify how courses are currently created in order to respect the barrier-free work environment requirement.
• In light of the Official Languages Act, the user interface of the Adapt authoring tool must be bilingual, in both official languages (French and English), to make it available to all users regardless of their language of choice.

The tool is currently used only by the College@ESDC. However, it could become a valuable tool for other divisions within ESDC’s portfolio and other Government of Canada departments to support their e-learning course development.